Hartog Takes Dominant Sebring Race 1 Win in Series Debut

Photo: Jessica Johnk/Porsche

Loek Hartog scored a dominant victory in his Porsche Carrera Cup North America debut in Thursday’s opening round of the season at Sebring International Raceway.

The 21-year-old Dutchman took his No. 24 Kellymoss Porsche 911 GT3 Cup car to a 1.070-second win over Gustav Burton’s No. 20 MDK Motorsports entry in a flag-to-flag run in the 40-minute contest.

Hartog, who started from pole, leaped into an early lead until the race’s only safety car period, due to the No. 99 Kellymoss Porsche of Alan Metni, who suffered an accident and was stranded in Turn 10 after attempting to drive his Porsche back to the pits.

Metni’s teammate and fellow Pro-Am class competitor Jordan Wallace was also in trouble in a separate incident on the opening lap.

Hartog stretched out his lead on the restart with 23 minutes to go, which saw a brief battle for second between the No. 78 Topp Racing Performance Porsche of Ryan Yardley and Burton.

Yardley completed the Pro class podium, ahead of the No. 98 JDX Racing Porsche of Alex Sedgwick and Topp’s Colin Kaminsky, who completed the top-five in his No. 77 Porsche.

Michael Cooper came home sixth, with JDX Racing’s Zachary Vanier in seventh and Dan Clarke eighth for MDK. Ninth went to Yves Baltas, also in a MDK Porsche.

Jimmy Llibre in the No. 2 ACI Motorsports Porsche was provisionally classified in tenth, although Llibre faces a post-race investigation for the first-lap incident with Metni.

The Pro-Am class win went to James Sofronas in the No. 14 GMG Racing Porsche following the opening lap carnage by the pair of Kellymoss entries.

Sofronas narrowly held off ACI’s Marco Cirone by 0.179 seconds for top class honors.

Reigning Pro-Am champion Efrin Castro, meanwhile, spun and made contact with the Turn 17 barriers late in the running.

Matt Halcome, meanwhile, became the first winner in the newly re-named Masters class, finishing ahead of Chris Bellomo and Richard Edge.

Masters class pole-sitter Mark Kvamme had a race to forget, having had a ten-second post-race penalty due to contact with the No. 45 Rukus Racing Porsche of Scott Blind.

It came after Kvamme was forced to start from the rear of the 40-car field due to a ride height infringement on his No. 43 MDK Porsche from qualifying.

The second and final Carrera Cup North America race of the week is set for Friday at 7:15 p.m. EDT, with live coverage on PorscheCarreraCup.us and Peacock.

RESULTS: Race 1

John Dagys

John Dagys is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Sportscar365. Dagys spent eight years as a motorsports correspondent for FOXSports.com and SPEED Channel and has contributed to numerous other motorsports publications worldwide. Contact John